2013-10-29 - Mummy Mayhem
11:45pm, Museum of History: "Hey, Mickey. Did you hear that?" A pause. "Hear what?" *THUMP* "That." 11:47pm, Museum of History: "Doesn't appear to be anything. Hey. Look at this, Jerry. You think if people knew they'd end up looking as ugly as this, they'd still wrap themselves up as mummies?" Laughter breaks out. 11:49pm, Museum of History: "Mickey ... is it just me or is that talisman glowing?" 11:50pm, Somewhere In New York City: Doctor Strange looks up from the book he was examining. He frowns, and moves to consult his own inner strengths, and powers, to see what darkness stirs. An ancient darkness, that has long slumbered ... 11:55 pm, Museum of History: "Jerry, I really don't think you should break that seal. Jerry, can you hear me? Jerry?!" 11:59 pm: *URK* Midnight/NOW: Doctor Strange's eyes lay unfocused, as he meditates inward, and he sees, he feels, the disruption. The seal has been broken. Outside the museum, the pavement erupts as if it were boiling, and a mass of huge, half-hand-sized beetles - scarabs, begin to pour out of the holes, skittering across the ground. There's a scream of agony, as they find a hobo, and burrow into his flesh. Inside the Museum, the Ancient One, seal broken, looks at the two corpses near his feet, smiles a sinister, not-quite rotted-skin smile, and begins to move towards the back doors, tattered Rags about his being, but his flesh already partially re-knitting from the absorbtion of life from the two guards. Cyberdragon is almost in a panic. Or Rather Cyber was. the //Alien Bio-suit// that was bonded to John Coltan Raced through the sky of New York. John has been told the details, and this would be his first real battle. He had caught the local newscast out of Manhattan, and it has taken him nearly a half hour to get back into the city as he Races at nearly 720 miles an hour, not quiet the speed of sound. But the streak can be seen Racing to the museum through the night sky as a trail of plasma comes from the feet toadd boosted speed as Cyber and john Race to the Museum as fast as possible. John had alerted the Avengers at the Academy, Trouble serious trouble at the New York Museum. An Ancient Evil from Cyber's past was in the city, sealed in a sarcophagus. Sealed many thousands of years ago. He told them if any avengers are on standby that have magical powers to summon them, if the seal is broken they will be needed. Time seems to go very slowly, for the pair as CyberDragon has little time for finesse. When Cyber sees a Skylight of Glass Cyber angles his decent to dive right through it with glass shattering and falling to the ground. He knows it will sound the alarm, hopefully distracting anyone and everyone in the museum from breaking the seal. When does Cyber arrive? 12:01 am. She's flying along through the air th3en on a patrol of the east coast, when she gets a signal of an alarm going off. GEneally museum robberies are things to be left to the local authorities, but museum robberies in the mystical sections are always a testament to the possibility of high danger. So at 12:03 am, Diana of Themyscira is rocketing through the air in a loud sonic boom, heading towards the entryway of the museum and gently landing on high alert. You're...kidding....me. She-Hulk doesn't say it out loud as she hears the alarms, the screams, and runs around the corner to see a guy being overwhelmed by...scarab beetles. Hrm. Well. She can smash scarab beetles, while somebody more detective-y or magic-y works out where they come from. Yup. She's just going to...charge... Julian Keller was just chilling out at the Avengers Academy, minding his own business when the alarm went off. He was back on the "active" roster so he suited up and scooted off towards the Museum, enveloped in that green glow of his TK field. He arrives just in time to see the dragon go crashing through the skylight, blinking several times, "Well...I guess he -is- new..." Hellion then taps the earpiece communicator he plucked up on the way out, broadcasting on the Avengers Frequency, "Hey, this is Hellion. Anyone besides New Guy, the Magic Dragon, and me responding to the museum thing?" The beetles, those that are upon the ground, at least, are easily crushed beneath She-Hulk's feet; but the Hobo? Well. It's a bit too late for him. The things were burrowed inside his flesh, and they pop out like angry ants on an anthill, and move straight for the leangreen She-Hulk machine, sensing flesh there, as well. They are creatures of magic, and one of them begins to actually burrow into her flesh, and painfully, at that, while others start to swarm in behind ... Then, a portion of the wall blasts out through simple massive force, and the Ragged mummy lunges out, fingers working as if for the first time in thousands of year. And it's eyesockets, one with a dried out husk of an eye, the other empty, look towards the sky. Fingerswrap around the broken wall, and it begins to stumble towards the streets. Behind it, a few more mummies of less size and stature move out behind the larger Ancient One; they are not like the movies, there is no true lumbering almost comical slowness, shuffle about them. They're entirely too limber, quick, and agile; beyond human. No answer comes in on Julian's comm, as it suddenly shorts out in a dampening field of magic, that even (if only tempoarily) blocks out Doctor Strange's senses. //~John are you sure about this?~// Cyber asks concerned for his host's survival. //~He is not a threat to be taken lightly.~// Cyberdragon listens for the sounds of the screams and the battle as Cyberdragon takes off running through the Museum. Heknows it has begun. Racing through the museum Cyberdragon doesn't blindly break through things, his feet claws allow him great tRaction. Granted the floor is gonna need repairs. But he is not gonna be blamed with the destruction of priceless historical artifacts. It might take going through a bit of a maze as he heads through the place But soon Cyberdragon will be standing with his prey inside. The Magical Energy doesn't effect Cyberdragon. At least not yet, but with an electronic Dracon roar. Cyber ignores the scarabs, and goes for the source. The Suitis attempting to transmit information for tactics... but his Radio is not getting through the magical interference. Of course Cyberdragon has one serious problem. Thousands of years ago, his host was a phaRaoh. Battle hardened, highly skilled in battle. His current Host? Is a halfway decent Street fighter. Big Difference. Wonder Woman lands through the air, seeing what is going on as her eyes flash, "Merciful Minerva!" The first order of business is to evacuate the civilians. In this case, Diana goes to charge in towards the security officers and late night attendants who are being swarmed over by the scarab beetles, tryign to interpose herself between them and the charging mystical insectoids, and trying to smash hre way through them to be able to save and evacuate the civilians. She-Hulk is...busy smashing scarabs. She picks them up, bangs them into each other, steps on them, and keeps going through them. Diana's evacuating civilians. Jen's just reducing the numbers of insects as best she can. This is a horrible, horrible situation. Oh, and she now has a beetle attached to her hair by its mandibles! "Yeeow!" Hellion exclaims as he gets an earful of squelch for his trouble. He winces, then decides he's going to have to eyeball it. Fortunately, there's a familiar figure within sight, and so Julian swoops down just a few meters above She-Hulk, reaching out his hands and using a TK-wave to force back those ScaRabs that were headed her way, before gathering as many as he can into a small TK-bubble: "Hey Tall, Green and Beautiful. These things bugging you?" He pauses a bit, then sighs, "Sorry, that was terrible, I know..." The Ancient One, the Nameless Thing turns that wrectched, singular eye upon Cyberdragon, and with an outthrust of it's hand it sends Cyberdragon flying into the brickwork with the magical decimation of a force-bolt, much like those of Julian's own. The creature is still waking, still gathering power. It points the crooked finger towards Wonder Woman, who is successfully staving off the scarabs from the civlians, and seeing to their safety, and three of the zombies skitter up and along the wall, running and defying gravity and speed, to lunge upon her with terrible force, trying to literally rip the Amazonian apart. Julian's TK bubble seems to work wonders, pushing the scarabs away and creating some sort of safety net and distance from the magical creatures. But, the formation of that TK bubble causes the Ancient One's attention to twist, and focus on him. In the empty socket, a dim flame seems to light, and rotted, brown and broken teeth, cracked, and empty lips begin to twist into a sadistic sort of grin. Cyberdragon as he watches the finger lift lifts his wings up to form a shield, and then the terrible bolt hits his wings he roars in pain as the bolt starts to push him back, digging furrows into the ground and then the wings collapse. The bolt strikes Cyberdragon in the chest pushing him back through a wall. The energy of the bolt as the suit is impact begins to analyse and record the data. Shaking his head Cyber growls out but appears unhurt. Looking at the amazon, and then the bugs, Cyberdragon, or Rather the host realizes something. This will not end well unless something happens now. The bolt of energy cracked two of John's ribs as the suit begins to alter it's structure to become resistant to the energy blast. the next blast should be reduced in force a bit. It will take time to become immune to the energy it's self. 'We have to buy the others time to get here. Do it... NOW!' Cyberdragon issues a very loud bird of prey screech, and it is at that point the sound should echo throughout the entire museum. If //he// remembers anything it will be the battle cry of the Armor of Ra. And then Cyberdragons entire form ripples and changes, colors shifting turning gold and and silver. The new form replaces the red and black dragon, as a falcon like suit of armor made of gold, silver, and what appears to be jewels of diamonds, rubies, sapphires. With a screech of Rage come words in ancient Egyptian. A large armored anthro-po-morphic falcon now stands ready to do battle. For those who can understand. -Remember me betrayer? I will place you back in your tomb!- And now the Bio-suit has taken on a form that should cause the main threat to focus on him entirely. In a language that everyone can understand Cyberdragon roars out, "Ignore the scarabs, they are endless so long as he is active!" And Cyberdragon in his new form points right at the source of the evil and once more lunges at his ancient enemy. "Destroy him!" Wonder Woman speaks over to the scarabs in Egyptian then, in an accent that could have come from the time of the Pharaohs as she goes to try and smash them, whirling in and out and attempting to use her lasso like a whip and her bracers on the defensive as they charge her, and as the zombies come at her she gives a slash with her lasso of truth, "I am sorry, but you must return to your state of rest and to the realm of Osiris's embrace." Lashing out at them again and again, using her lasso like a Razor edged whip to try and keep a defensive perimeter about her. They're hard to ignore," Jen calls cheerfully, shaking the one off of her hair into the face of a lesser mummy. That she charges. "I'll keep them contained, magic types...tell me there's some magic types here who can deal with this guy?” "We -can't- just ignore them, they'll start eating people!" Hellion calls out to the Cyberdragon, though at his urging he does shift tacts, instead of trying to gather up the scaRabs, he instead just envelops any bystanders he can see and tries to lift them out of harm's way, at least for the time being. You know, if Creepy McDustypants over there doesn't try to put some freaky magic whammy on him or something, because thus far Julian hasn't noticed he's being lack-of-eyeballed. Responding to the Avenger's alert Hawkeye arrives on the scene in costume and riding his skycycle. "Well this is new," he hits the comms spotting She-Hulk. "Shulkie, Hellion, CeeDee, what the heck is going on here, and who do I shoot?" he asks flipping the skycycle to handsfree flight and getting his bow out. The mummies sent after Diana are cut asunder, but are far from sleeping; they dance out of the way, some missing limbs from the magic lasso's weilding, and they hiss, horribly at her. Two of the other undead creatures lunge like great animals pouncing their prey at Hawkeye, while Julian is suddenly given the impression and mental illusion that the Ancient One is Cyberdragon, and Cyberdragon is the Ancient One. And, as Cyberdragon turns into the Armor of Ra, that golden finery with gems and brilliance, the Ancient One lets out it's first sound. It is a wretched scream; that which causes, literally, the ground to tremble, and those who hear it to cover their ears; a sonic scream of agony, and Rage, and pure, absolute black hatred. And, it brings both it's hands together, causing either wall that Cyberdragon isabout to suddenly collapse, in attempt to crush the thing beneath the brickwork, and cement. Hawkeye, for now, goes unnoticed by the Ancient One. Luckily for him. Unluckily for him? Two of the remaining mummies can -jump-, and jump, they do, attaching themselves to his skycycle and attempting to maul the Avenger apart. As Cyberdragon moves it is suddenly caught in the falling debris. Good think this is not ancient Egypt, Otherwise that debris would weigh several thousand pounds. Not that it held it then, but the bring walls, and cement? A few hundred pounds. Crouching down, as he is buried Cyberdragon's wings lift up as the golden feathered shield helping displace some of the debris to the side, and then she will roar out and push through the rubble as Cyber lunges. -I will destroy you!- Cyber roars out and this time Cyber unleashes his Plasma bolts firing off two powerful Bursts from his hands, and a third from his mouth. Problem is Cyber used most of his energy in the flight over... he's half empty and has to put some serious power in all three in order to have a chance to hit and penetRate the mystical barrier around the mummy. Cyber is focusing entirely on the mummy, now that he has it's attention... maybe the control he has over the scarabs and mummies will be lessened. Wonder Woman whirls over, on the defensive as the mummies charge her, "I am sorry, old ones, that your rest must be disturbed, but you belong back in the realm of Osiris, and I cannot permit you to harm thos eof this era." HOlding back, on the defensive as the Mummies force her backwards, then Diana goes to yank off her Razor edged tiara, tossing it through the room to hopefully ricochet through some of the mummies, even as her guard is slightly off and one strikes her bfeore she can block, the Amazon staggering. She-Hulk smashes. Cheerfully. She's just beating on whatever mummies or Scarabs get close to her, dRawing as much of their "fire" and attention as she can. "Somebody opened something they shouldn't have in the museum!" she informs those on theAvengers band. "I think me and Wonder Woman can keep these busy...somebody needs to go lock this up again." "Not so fast, ugly!" Hellion calls out, throwing up a TK shield that deflects those plasma bolts that (the real) Cyberdragon launches at (the real) Mummy. "We just got that guy, can't get him broken already!" Of course, this might look and sound a bit odd to the folks that -aren't- having their senses turned around backwards by the evil Mummy-Sorcerer. The Michael Jordan mummies take Hawkeye by surprise, and the Skycycle's engine whines to keep airborne with the extra weight. "Station keeping!" he shouts to the bike's voice commands as he draws snaps a flare arrow from his quiver and fires it into theface of one of the mummies. The second hits him hard, and he staggers, but still has the balance swing his bow back to return the favour. "If the cute librarian chick from the Mummy opened it, I call dibs on rescuing her," Hawkeye quips before grunting when the Mummy hits him again. Glancing at the battle field he calls over Comms "Hellion, what are you doing?" then to the rest of the team. "Sort out what's up with Hellion and I'll try to get to whatever it is and close it. Swinging his bow at the mummy one more time he takes the controls and drives the bike just above a rooftop to scrape the last hitchiker mummy off. Hellion saves the Ancient One the trouble of having to absorb, or deflect the blasts. It grins, savage, and distorted at Cyberdragon, and then opens it's maw, breathing a gout of sickly green balefire at it's foe, and most hated enemy. Just like a dragon would. The Anicent One may not yet be at full power, but he's clearly a clever bastard. Between She-Hulk, and Wonder Woman, the three assaulting the Amazon Princess are dispatched, and fully put to rest, bones and rags, tatters of flesh savagely scoured and beaten to the loss of the Museum that will, sadly, have no futher mummies on dispaly. And probably not for quite some time. But the scarabs, relentless little asshats as they are, devilish little deviants, magical creatures of fiendish appetites, pour out of another hole in the concrete and move to keep the two heroines quite busy if they can. Luckily, however, the Ancient One is still distracted with Cyberdragon. Hellion, unwitting party to the Ancient One's revenge, is now left alone for his part. And while one mummie tumbles to the ground, head aflame, the other's head rocks with the sock of the bow, and screams back at Hawkeye in return, grappling the Avenger and trying to hook it's fingers into his mouth, so he can pry Hawkeye's head off it's body like one might pop a dandelion flower off it's stem. At the moment he watches his blasts impact the shield The mummy (the Fake one) starts singing almost screaming? And singing in English, well tries to. He chooses a song that he knows well from video games. Blow me Away, by Breaking Benjamin "They fall in line, one at a time, ready to play!" Why would much less how would a Mummy many thousands of years old know the song from the Halo video games? So for the moment it might sound like an unknown spell to the (The Real mummy)), in a new language. Cyberdragon tries to move and evade his attacker, sadly with those cracked ribs... The Gout of Sickly green fire will be detected and the armor moves, instead of wasting fire on plasma bolts, it fires out of the feet light jets as the blast barely misses Cyberdragon. The Mummy has learned from it's previous encounter. It knows it can become immune torepeated attacks by the same force. Low on energy he roars out at Hellion, "No time to loose, we've got to move, Steady your Hand!" Cyber can do nothing for the moment but run, it is trying to get out into the open, it needs to get to a couple of wires so it can attempt to recharge it's reserves. Being on the defensive against seemingly unending waves of adversaries does not sit well wtih the Amazon Princess, for she prefers to fight her own batltles, but she recognizes the necessity over of what must be done, as she fights back to back, bracer to brawler with the She-Hulk as the scarabs come out in seemingly unending numbers. Diana's eyes flash, "I grow tired of this." Her ill temper only stilled by that if she fights back more fiercely she risks excessive damage to the museum and it's facilities, and the pricess artifacts stored there as she fights like a blur, lashing out. Then her eyes fall upon a great spear on the wall, from the days of the Vikings, and she moves to charge for it. "Me too..." She glances at the spear, and moves to help clear Diana's route towards it. She's not a weapons type herself, except for improvised clubs, but it certainly seems like it might help the less green Amazon. Then again, she could probably use it if she had to. At this point, Wonder Woman goes to grab She-Hulk, hoisting the woman up in the air as if she were a great lance. Then going to quickly toss the spear up for She-Hulk to catch and hold forwards as she instructs.. Then she goes to launch She-Hulk through the air, intenton using the Savage green woman to simply smash, stab, and slash as she was thrown through the air like a ballistae bolt with a great war spear to try and slash up the scarabs by the hundreds! "What the heck?" Hellion frowns as the "mummy" starts playing some very modern music. Now Hellion isn't a genius, but he's been training pretty heavily for a year now, and as he thinks on things like where people are positioned and what's transpired...he comes to a conclusion. Or at least a suspicion. So after a moment, he reaches out telekinetically, and gathers up a bunch of the rubble that the battle between Cyberdragon and the Mummy has generated, and suddenly moves to pile it around the "Cyberdragon," trying to trap it within for at least a few moments. He lands on a nearby rooftop, and keeps his TK field around himself up -just- powerful enough to prevent any scarabs from getting to him, and surrounds the rubble pile with as powerful a TK field as he can manage. "Sorry guys, I think he messed with my head for a second there." Julian calls out. "Dunno how long I might be able to hold him, so whatever you're going to do, do it fast!" Wrenching tension in his neck, the taste of desiccated flesh, the museum looming up ahead of him, that's all Hawkeye is thinking about as the mummy tries to rip his head off. First, the museum; Clint tilts the steering of his skycycle to aim for the windows and not a wall. Next the mummy; he grabs spare arrow head from the first pouch he can reach and stabs it into the creature's wrappings. This one is an acid arrow if that's good or not, Clint can't say. But in the next second the skycycle bursts through the window of the museum, going...somewhere. At this point, there is a flash. A bright flash that is blinding through the light as a voice chants, "By the All Seeing Eye of Agomotto, I pierce this Veil!" In a flash of mystical energy as the barriers around the area are shattered, and Doctor Strange appears, "And by the will of the Vishanti, stand down Ancient Fiend before I banish you back to the hole you crawled out of!" The Ancient One realizing that his forces are dwindling, was not quite prepared for this sort of onslaught. And with that realization that he's not quite at his full potential, and realizing the strength of Hellion, pitted with She-Hulk, Wonder Woman, Hawkeye, and certainly Cyberdragon, calculates his chances for coming up with several new powerful minions as very, very low. It seems about to take it's chances, until the Strange One arrives, with a magical power that the Ancient One yet cannot match. It's jaw descends, and it lets out another wicked scream; this time, with it, out of it's mouth a hoarde of black locusts, blinding and all encompassing out. For a moment, they're caught within Hellion's TK field, bottled up and an odd sight to be sure. Then, the Ancient One flexes it's magical muscle, and holding up an ankh, -burns- through Hellion's TK field; there will be some feedback, to the mutant, painful, but bearable. And the cloud of locusts bursts free. And all that remains in the scattered cloud, is a brief breeze on the wind, and sand, that scatters, and carries up, and up, into the winds. She-Hulk, and Wonder Woman manage to dissect the last vestiges of the scarabs, while Hawkeye's actions seem to burn off the head of his adversary, as the skybike goes crashing through the museum; hopefully not destroying anything too valuable, or non-replacable in the process. The carcasses of the mummies are still, oow. As are the corpses of the scarabs. But the ankh, and the Ancient One are both nowhere to be seen. The Sorcerer Supreme will lift his left hand up as a blue nimbus fire surrounds his hand and then with a snap of his fingers, "Be gone pestilence of evil, back to the nothingness from which you were spawned!" He commands as the Locusts are caught in that same blue fire and burned into nothing. Strange's Right hand is lifted, "Pierce the veil, and show me where.... Argh!" And he recoils some... "He is gone... escaped. A very potent non detection spell." Strange stands there for a moment. "The Sarcphogus has been destroyed." Finally as things settle down Strange turns to the Golden armored figure as the golden form starts to fade, returning to the red and black bio-mechanical Dragon it once was. "Ah The Armor of Ra... or more correctly... The Living Armor." Strange almost seems pleased. Cyberdragon slowly approaches... //~My host has two cracked ribs... but he will be alright for the moment.~// The Armor Slowly starts to split open as it disgorges the young man who wears the armor. As the armor speaks while the Host recovers. //~He will be back. He has leftto regain his strength... and search for his tokens of power.~// John holds his ribs coughing out but seems alright for the moment. "Owww! Not this time you son of a- DAMMIT!" Julian exclaims as the Mummy "burns" a hole through his TK field before he can close it up behind. "Come -on-! Seriously?!?" Hellion says quite petulantly, dropping his TK field around the now-nonexistent Mummy, and floating down to ground level to see if there's any clean up to be done, though he's sullen about it. Wonder Woman does not particularly like magic users. "Can we leave him with you then, Sorceror?" That extends to all but those rare few who have proven themselves to her, her eyes narrowed as she watches over at the young man protectively tehn in case more help is needed. "He's with us." Hellion asides to Wonder Woman as he shuffles some more rubble into a neat little pile. Hawkeye hits the floor inside the museum, the skycycle and the remains of the mummy hit the wall. The skycycle falls, and a display in the Birds of the World exhibit shatters in an explosion of glass, wood and feathers. Hawkweye will be paying for that later. Though right now he has larger problems, like the Super Mummy he doesn't know just got whammied by Dr Strange. The Avenger climbs to his feet and heads back to the window, drawing an arrow putting it to string before climbing into the frame. What he sees earns a "Huh," from him and he hops down to the ground floor. "Doc Strange," he greets with a nod as he looks around him. "So the party's over, right?" Doctor Strange looks upon Princess Diana and smiles softly. "Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme. I have been a friend and Ally to the Avengers and other such groups before." He says and then he exhales softly. "No sadly he has the spells needed to cloud my ability to sense him or locate him. For now he has retreated to recover his power and his strength. He will be back, more correctly, he will be back for revenge. The Living Armor was used to defeat and imprison him once before." Cyber comes up and says, //~Thank you for your timely arrival Sorcerer, but our situation is much worse. The Nameless One once held ten talismans of power. The Ankh was one of them. In time he will relocate the remaining nine, and with each talismen he holds he will spread plague, famine, disease and war across the world.~// As Cyber speaks John moves over to Hawkeye allowing Cyber to handle the details. "That rotting sonofabitch..." John seems to be in real pain as Cyber looking at John starts to approach and with what seems like honest concern. //~Just rest John. Hawkeye could you transport John to a hospital?~// "Well, then, we have to lock him up before that can happen...and yes, get him to a hospital." She-Hulk lets out a breath. "Or maybe hide the talismans. Or...something." Wonder Woman nod and narrows her eyes, "The boy is in need of medical attention. You can discuss things with him /later/ sorceror, wtih one of those present." She gestures over at the two Avengers, "For I Trust them to be a good judge. I do not trust you with the fate of a child." Hawkeye puts his weapons away. "Relax um, Wonder Woman?" hey Clint actually read the Justice League files! "Strange is one of the good guys, but you are right, first John needs to get to the hospital," he looks to She-Hulk. "My bike is a wreck right now, think you could get him there? I can sort out with Doctor Strange on how we find these talismans before old Aram-Set or whatever his name is, gets his hands on them." As the Talk of John and Cyber comes to a clear head, Doctor Strange with some concern closes his eyes and says, "I can open a portal to the Avengers Academy so Cyber and Jennifer can take him to their infirmary. He would be safer there then at a normal hospital." Then turning to the princess of the Amazons he says, "If that is acceptable with you?" He doesn't want to start a fight, or argument. But using magic on someone when they are being protected? But unless very clearly objected to by the Amazon princess Doctor Strange will open a portal into the Avengers Academy... once Clint of course clears it with security, and Princess Diana does not object...